


Dilemma (Zayn Malik AU)

by latdetvara



Category: One Direction (Band), zayn malik - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 04:18:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4592580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latdetvara/pseuds/latdetvara





	Dilemma (Zayn Malik AU)

“Emma, promise me you won’t tell anyone,” he whispered, his eyes full of fear, didn’t have sparkle in them like they used to. She nodded; he forced a smile and unwrapped his arms from around her.  
“I love you,” she whispered.  
“I love you too, don’t forget that,” he murmured, kissing her forehead. He turned around, walking away. She walked in the cold rain for a while, the drops and her tears mixing. Nothing would ever be the same after tonight.  
She woke up the next morning drowsy, her stomach in knots and her face blotchy. Pulling her messy chestnut trusses into a ponytail, Emma sighed. Today is going to be rough, she thought, as she was thinking she picked her phone up off of the ground and read through her text messages. They were all from the friends she was with the night before, all asking the same thing. “What are we going to do?”  
She didn’t even want to think about it yet, so she trudged out of her apartment and downstairs to retrieve her mail. The attendant sitting behind the desk smiled at her, but judged Emma’s appearance, she looked the opposite of what she normally did. Emma pulled out the newspaper, and it sent the rest of her mail falling to the ground. Groaning, she bent to pick them up, the first page of the newspaper caught her eye. The title read, “Murder in South Beach, No Suspects Yet.” Her eyes grew wide with fear and anxiety, and quickly shutting her mailbox, she bolted. The door chimed behind her, someone had just come in, but she didn’t stay long enough to turn around to see whom it may be; she ran all the way up six floors to her apartment. Safe inside, she locked the door and re-examined the newspaper. The front page held a picture: caution tape blocking off where the victim’s body had been. Emma tried to read, but her eyes, blurry, wouldn’t let her. She let her eyes wander about the page, attempting to absorb any sort of information she possibly could.  
“20-something male found in South Beach last night, apparently drugged and shot to death after a small party on the beach the same night…” Emma read aloud, her voice shaky. “Foul play is clearly involved…No suspects yet, but anyone who may have information can call the State Police Department…” she looked up at the ceiling, tears filling her eyes. Sinking to the floor, she sat cross-legged with the newspaper in her lap.  
This cannot be happening, she thought, we weren’t even there that long. Nothing even happened, it’s not our fault. It’s not my fault. She nodded, agreeing with her thoughts. She didn’t do anything wrong, she had nothing to do with that guy. It was no big deal, she didn’t even know who he was. At least, that’s what she tried to convince herself. Besides, if she talked to the police, they’d probably put her in jail. There goes her scholarship, her job. There was no way she was talking to the police, no way.  
Emma stayed alone for the next few weeks, only going to school or work. She didn’t contact anyone, not bothering to communicate unless absolutely necessary. There were days when Emma would wake up in the morning, ready to go to the police. She’d put on her favorite jeans with her comfortable Uni sweatshirt and would be just about out the door when she would realize what she was doing. She’d promised. Then she would turn around and go back to sleep. She sat on the floor, cross-legged staring at the wall, tears usually falling from her eyes. How badly she wanted to say something, to anyone.  
She couldn’t say anything to anyone; she’d even turned her phone off—ignoring her friends completely. There was no one she wanted to talk to anyway.  
One day, a Thursday, almost a week and a half after he had been discovered, one of her friends came into the café where Emma worked. Niall was his name, and he was normally happy. His blonde hair was usually done perfectly, outfit perfect, but that day he was a wreck. His face was pale, and his hair was tangled like he hadn’t washed it in a few days. He looked just as torn up as Emma. They greeted each other with a fake smile.

“Emma, where have you been?” Niall asked, his voice crackily like he hadn’t spoken in a few days. Emma just looked at the counter. “We’ve been trying to call you and text you but you haven’t responded, where have you been?”

“I’ve been here, or at school,” Emma replied, still not making eye contact, she knew where her phone was: under her bed, like it had been for the past week and a half. Niall said something in reply but Emma didn’t catch it; she started zoning out.

“What has gotten into you?” Niall almost screeched, his face reddening in anger. “Have you told anyone?” he interrogated. Emma shook her head. “Good because we’re not saying anything. It’s not a good idea, they’re just going to convince themselves that we did it, even though we had nothing to do with what happened that night,” he whispered, as people had come into the café and were standing behind him in line. Emma only nodded. Niall left, and Emma expected that she would probably hear from him again, but she wouldn’t know and didn’t care.

So, they’d decided that they weren’t going to the police, they couldn’t risk their reputations and lives on one night’s mistake. It’s not like they’d known that guy either, he was just some random college student like them. At least, that’s what they told themselves. They wanted to forget, but Emma couldn’t. She wanted to talk to someone, but whom could she talk to? Nobody wanted to talk about that night anyway. Every new article and every day that she didn’t leave her apartment, Emma felt more and more guilty. She had to do something.  
She had frequent nightmares, but one was especially awful. She’d woken up screaming, crying, and sweating. Her dream started right after he’d let her go, and she watched as he stumbled away, already drunk. She tried to run after him, but her feet got stuck in the sand; she was immobile. Falling to her knees she cried as he walked crookedly along the coast and disappeared into the mist. Moments later a gunshot sounded through the beach and then another, confirmation that he was really gone. In reality it had been different: he’d let her go that night, after asking her to do something that seemed impossible ‘not tell anyone’. And try to forget. How could she forget what he was about to do? What could she have done to stop him? Nothing probably. She missed him like crazy; he’d been her first love.  
This was all a part of Emma’s secret. She’d promised, but there was no way that she could just let it go, at least not anymore. The morning after her nightmare, she pulled out her dusty phone from underneath her bed. Once she turned it on, it vibrated uncontrollably. All the texts she received were reminders of her plan. They all told her not to tell anyone, but she was about to do the opposite.  
As she rode her bicycle to the police station —only a few blocks from her apartment complex— she reminded herself that even though she was breaking her promise, it was the right thing to do. He wouldn’t have wanted it to turn out this way either, it definitely was not part of his plan, and it wasn’t who he was. She chained her pink bike up to a skinny tree and straightened herself out once more. The stocky brown building seemed intimidating now more than ever. She took in a shaky breath, calming her nerves. I have to do this, she thought; it’s what’s best. For everyone.  
Emma pulled the door open hesitantly, and walked quietly to the desk where a portly balding man was sitting. He looked at her carefully, his eyes taking in her doe-eyed expression.  
“What can I help you with, miss?” he grunted.  
“Well, I heard that if you had information about what happened at South Beach…” Emma tried, but he interrupted her.  
“Well, do you? We don’t have time for games young lady,” he asked, rubbing his forehead and typing random things into the computer. Emma nodded. His eyes turned from bored, to hard and wary.  
“You can follow me then,” he stated, coming out from behind the desk and motioning her to come along. They wound through hallways, each one looking the same. There were officers everywhere, all wearing the same navy blue uniforms. Nobody greeted each other with friendly smiles, just curt nods. The portly officer, Miller his name tag said, led her to a room and ushered her inside, and then left without saying anything. Emma looked around, the room was clearly an interrogation room: a mirror along the whole of one wall, and the rest were covered with old wood paneling. In the center of the room a lonely table stood with two chairs opposite each other. Emma took the chair facing the wall with the mirror like she’d seen on TV. She sat twirling her thumbs for what seemed like forever, a pit forming in her stomach. There wasn’t a clock in the room, but somewhere she heard one ticking.  
Five minutes later, (she’d kept time by counting the ticks) a man and woman came in. The woman was pretty, but not quite feminine; with khaki pants and a cream colored top. Her hair was cut short and she wasn’t wearing a lot of makeup; Emma inferred she was a cop. The man followed her in, he wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. He was built really well, so Emma guessed he was a cop as well. They both had heavy looking belts on, and they carried stacks of papers. They sat down without saying a word to her or each other.  
“Alright,” the woman spoke first, “I’m officer Smith, and this is my partner officer Jones. We’re going to be working with you today.” Her voice was husky, not quite manly but not exactly feminine. Emma nodded.  
“So Miller, the first guy you met,” Jones spoke up, his voice also very husky and low, “Said you might have some information for us on the murder on South Beach…” Emma nodded and cleared her throat.  
“I do, his name was Zayn Malik,” she looked both of them in the eye while she spoke. “Um, he was my best friend,”  
“Okay, keep going,” Smith encouraged.  
“I don’t really know what you want me to tell you.” Emma shrugged.  
“Okay, let’s start with what you know about Zayn,” Jones suggested, looking at Smith and they both nodded.  
“Well, he was my best friend, we’d known each other since I was in 8 and he was a 9. He’d moved across the street that year, and our moms made us be friends immediately because I didn’t have many friends and he was new. We were lucky,” Emma smiled at the memory, “Because we liked to do the same things. Eventually we started dating, but we were still each other’s best friend.” She put her folded hands on top of the table and stared at them. “I knew he had depression, but he never told me that it was clinical. We just did things the way we usually did, you know? He never hinted that he was sad, which should have probably worried me but I didn’t notice…” she trailed off, and then got back to her story. “We moved here after I graduated school, we both really loved the University here, it was perfect because he wanted to be an artist and I want to be a teacher. We lived on campus for a while, but it was weird for us, so we got an apartment. I still live there, I just sleep on the couch because I can’t handle going into our room.” Emma sighed. “We were going to get married, our parents knew, everyone knew,” she stopped, and stared at her hands. When the officers realized she wasn’t going to say anymore they sat up straight again.  
“Okay, so I guess we need to know what you know about that night.” Smith sighed, clearly stressed and weighed down by the amount of information Emma just provided. She proceeded to write things down on a tablet she’d carried in with her.  
“Well, we were supposed to get married—“  
“That night?” Jones asked, writing something down on a sheet of notebook paper.  
“Yes, on the beach, both of our parents are in Bradford, so we were going to Skype them the ceremony. But Zayn predicted the night before that it would be too cold, and he was right, so we postponed it until, well,” Emma thought about the time that had passed and calculated the days, “tomorrow night. Our parents should have come in tonight, as a surprise for him, because I’ve done all the planning. But I called them before I came here, they were devastated.”  
“So, what did you plan on doing that night?” Smith asked, leaning on her elbows.  
“We were just going to find a good place on the beach. But Zayn, he didn’t want to, he wanted to be alone that day. He was crabby, he’d gotten a bad grade on one of his papers and it ruined his day.” Emma sniffled, talking about him made her sad and lonely. She missed him so much: his long spindly arms around her, his voice so gravely and rich whispering her to sleep. It felt as though she’d lost a part of herself.  
“So, what happened then?” Jones asked, watching her intently.  
“We went down to the beach together, we love being out there while it’s raining. Well, we loved I mean,” she couldn’t see her hands anymore, they were blurry. “Sorry, I just…I wish I could have done something.”  
“Emma, what do you mean? You’ll have to be more clear,” Smith said softly.  
“He wandered off by himself for a little bit, then he came back and he was sad. He wouldn’t tell me anything, even when I asked him a million times. He told me to stop worrying, and of course I didn’t. He walked with me back to our house and then he told me what he was going to do…” she shook her head, looking at her hands, even though she actually couldn’t see them; her eyes were watery. “I can’t believe it happened, I should have followed him back, I should have tried to help him. But he wouldn’t have let me.”  
“Emma, did Zayn kill himself?” Jones asked. She could only nod, sobs erupted from deep inside her; she’d been holding it in for weeks. Smith reached across the table, patting Emma’s hand.  
“There’s nothing you can do now Emma,” she whispered.  
“No, but I should have done something while he was here.” Emma sobbed, tears finally sliding down her cheeks.  
“It’ll be okay eventually, Emma,” Jones tried to console her, but he and Smith both knew that it wouldn’t be possible right now.  
“Can I see him?” Emma asked after a few minutes of quiet crying, her voice barely above a whisper. Smith and Jones looked at each other then back at Emma.

 

Epilogue  
Later that week Emma held a funeral in her hometown for Zayn. The papers concluded that the murder in South Beach was not actually a murder, but a suicide. They didn’t say much, but Emma knew that it was for the best; he wouldn’t have wanted that. The rest of her life she lived for him, because she knew he’d be watching her, making sure she was happy. Eventually she’d become an art teacher, living out both of their dreams. She never married, but changed her name to Emma Malik.


End file.
